The New Establishment

Lena Dunham: The New Establishment

age: 26. last year’s ranking: New. SPHERE OF INFLUENCE: Dunham has attracted attention for her semi-famous parents (the artists Carroll Dunham and Laurie Simmons), her inexperience, and her frank depiction of sex—for all these reasons and more, people just can’t stop talking about her HBO sitcom, Girls. The show’s first season, which aired in 2012, drew an audience of 4.1 million viewers and the network has renewed it for a second season. PARTNER IN CRIME: Girls executive producer Judd Apatow contacted Dunham after seeing her 2010 indie film, Tiny Furniture, which was shot in her parents’ Tribeca loft and starred her mother and sister. “If you ever want someone to give you a lot of money and screw everything up, we should talk,” Apatow wrote in an e-mail. MOVING ON UP: Dunham was still living with her parents when Girls went into production last year. This spring she reportedly moved into a one-bedroom in Brooklyn Heights. BIG COOL FAN: New York mayor Mike Bloomberg. “We’re obsessed,” Bloomberg’s deputy Howard Wolfson told the New York Post. “It’s the big watercooler topic of conversation Monday morning in the bullpen.” YEAR AHEAD: ↗